Italian in Prague

If there’s one thing I noticed in Prague (other than how much the people love their Pilsner Urquell,) it’s how obsessed the Czech seems to be about Italian food. I was a little skeptical at first about trying out Italian food in Prague, yet I could not say no after seeing the atmosphere and the local clientele at La Finestra.

The restaurant was fully booked so they made some room forbid and set up a special table right in the middle of their wine cellar, which was absolutely perfect since as we progressed through the meal the sommelier could just keep picking out a new bottle for us, no menu needed.

The atmosphere was friendly and the menu interesting – the food was not the typical Italian you would expect, no cabonara, arabiata, vongole, let alone any pizza, in sight. There were interesting variations such as ranbit’s liver, beetroot cappacio, and veal tongue, and we tried all of those!

Let me just tell you straight up that the food here was one of the best Italian I’ve had in a while. The flavors, simplistic plating, portion size, just hit the right spot for me. The risotto with generous shavings of truffles was amazing, while the endive salad had the perfect balance between bitterness, sweetness and tanginess. The beet dish was also deliciously fresh. I think a lot of credit goes to the quality of their 10 years aged balsamic from their special producer.

La Finestra seems to take the quality of their ingredients very seriously because my dad, a die-hard vongole fan, inquired if it would be possible for them to make him some, and the server, while saying it’s possible, politely pointed out that their clams cane in yesterday and would no longer be at their absolute best. And that, my friend, is what I call a good restaurant service!

Another thing that were worth mentioning was the olives, it was my first time tryig non-pickled olives and I’m now in love with this new discovery.